2013 Archives

[EinoAnttila]

I'm interested in if the Acer W700 gets hot and what the fan sound is compared to say, a MacBook Pro or your other kind of laptop? Does it get loud and does the fans act like a MacBook's meaning a pretty random way of turning the noise waay up? I read that the Acer W700 is in line with iPad 3 and 4 with heat and less hot than the Surface Pro - any experiences on this? Is it comfortable to lie in bed with and play some games with touch?

[Jafloogan]

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shelimp1611 wrote:

After doing a lot of weighing, I decided to go for the Surface Pro, unless anyone here can convince me otherwise. Thanks for everyones help

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I do hope you understand that you're purchasing a product from the same company thatg produced the XBOX 360, widely known for a failure rate as great as 30%, among various other problems.

1. Around 90GB; you can delete some of the included bloatware and metro apps to maximize space, though.

2. Hardware quality is very good, in my experience. Everything feels solid and well put together. I don't think it will malfunction down the road.

3. Yes. I downloaded one of the first available fixes for my WiFi and it was fixed since. I don't know why other people are having issues, but I have solved this problem on two W700s so far, so I don't think I'm simply lucky. Odds are, others are not doing it correctly. Honestly, Windows 8 is the biggest software problem. Nothing of Acer's doing.

4. The 10.6 screen of the SP will make the hard to use desktop in W8 even harder to use. I prefer the more generous screen of the W700.

5. Works fine for my mouse and keyboard.

6. Outstanding. Anywhere between 6-9 hours depending on what I am doing.

7. N/A
8. I haven't had experience with them.
9. W700.

[Tamale]

I think the fact that you gain an extra inch of viewing real estate and more than double the battery life all for LESS money makes the W700 totally destroy the surface pro.

The *only* thing I don't like about my W700 is that it doesn't come with an attachable keyboard WITH trackpad/trackpoint.  That feature alone is making me lust over the thinkpad helix, but considering it will START at $1,500 I consider it laughably high-priced.

[mic]

you probaly can increase the battery life on surface pro by disable turbo boost, hoping to add some hrs on it. need to test it though.

turn it on if like to game, encode, or compile tasks.

anandtech did a good job of review of surface pro. check it out if you haven't already.

so if you worried about battery life, just turn the turbo off.

[1stTimeAcer]

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mic wrote:

you probaly can increase the battery life on surface pro by disable turbo boost, hoping to add some hrs on it. need to test it though.

turn it on if like to game, encode, or compile tasks.

anandtech did a good job of review of surface pro. check it out if you haven't already.

so if you worried about battery life, just turn the turbo off.

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I'm not sure you can actually turn off Turbo, since Mirrosoft would have to allow that. Even if you can turn off turbo (in term making it into an i3 with HT), it will still be very unlikely to pick up too much more battery life. Due to its size, Microsoft admitted that they had to put a battery that could its desired size, which is almost 1/4 smaller than the W700. That is the real reason why it's battery life is more inline with those tiny ultrabooks (tiny batteries) than the tablets.

If battery life isn't a big issue, Surface Pro really is better equipped (The tablet itself, not including bundled accessories), but keep in mind you need to add an addtional $100+ on the keyboard cover on top of the tablet's cost, which makes it a more expensive alternative to the W700.

Now only if Acer can fully fix the Wifi/Bluetooth, 10w TDP, and provide better customer support.....then the decision would be a lot easier.

[wmm]

Yes, for me the battery life and accessories were more important than the microSD card and active digitizer, so it wasn't hard to make the decision in favor of the W700. Other people may have different priorities.

[ounkeo]

regarding heat and fan noise.

the w700 gets warm after extended usage. the heat is about the same as you get from using an ipad over the same period. in fact, the ipad gets hotter faster and so far from just general light usage, the ipad is generally hotter than the w700 is. i suspect the 2 vents really help with heat dissipation. you can hold the vent quite comfortably like i'm doing now. it's lukewarm.

heat is about the same as you get from any other tablet like an ipad or galaxytab, which i can compare with.

in terms of noise, it's whisper quiet. in fact, it's not even venting or making any noise as i type this. been in use for general surfing for 20 minutes + right now. and even if the fan blows, it's very light and you can hear a soft swooshing if you place your ear to the vents, otherwise it's pretty quiet even under photoshop load.

also, battery life is excellent. for general use, i'm getting 7hrs + with screen at 40% which is the brightness i am comfortable with. under work conditions using a mix of office and adobe suite (phtoshop, illustrator etc), i usually get about 5-6 hrs. remember this is under load with a mix of general activities thrown in during the day. if all i do is photoshop, i will get 4.5-5hrs  which is, frankly, superb.

on a normal 10 hr workday, i rarely have to charge. between lunch breaks, meetings and whatnot, the w700 can easily last te whole day with enough battery to spare for a cup of coffee reading before i head home.

[EinoAnttila]

@ounkeo:

Thanks! Wow, all that sounds AMAZING. Is this the i5 version you're talking about or the i3?

They're actually promising the i5 version of the tablet should arrive in Finland tomorrow (Monday), so I'll be posting my own views on things also very soon. I'm quite certain from what I've seen I'll be getting the tablet no matter what.

So excited!

[EinoAnttila]

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EinoAnttila wrote:

@ounkeo:

Thanks! Wow, all that sounds AMAZING. Is this the i5 version you're talking about or the i3?

They're actually promising the i5 version of the tablet should arrive in Finland tomorrow (Monday), so I'll be posting my own views on things also very soon. I'm quite certain from what I've seen I'll be getting the tablet no matter what.

So excited!

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Aaand, the "estimated" release date in Finland for the W700 i5 model has been postponed for ANOTHER month to March. Great stuff, not so excited anymore.

[wariscoming]

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Tamale wrote: 

The *only* thing I don't like about my W700 is that it doesn't come with an attachable keyboard WITH trackpad/trackpoint.  That feature alone is making me lust over the thinkpad helix, but considering it will START at $1,500 I consider it laughably high-priced.

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Thinking the exact same thing.  Love that the Helix will have an i7 processor too...but like you said, it's going to be outrageously priced which sucks.